


A Good Show

by Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)



Category: Van Helsing (2004)
Genre: Chocolate Box Treat, Clothed Sex, M/M, Smut, Sneaking Around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 12:31:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13659027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/pseuds/Cousin%20Shelley
Summary: Carl nipped at his lower lip, his hands moving over Van Helsing’s back, his ass, sliding around to slip inside his shirt and vest to touch his skin. “No wounds this time, I take it.” He pressed his mouth against Van Helsing’s jaw, then his neck. “Nothing that needs a dressing?”He pulled Carl’s shirt over his head, leaving him naked. Then he grasped Carl’s hand and pressed it against the only part of him Carl needed to worry about this time. “This requires your immediate attention.”





	A Good Show

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Highlander_II](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Highlander_II/gifts).



> A little Van Helsing smut treat in your Chocolate Box. Happy Valentine's Day! :)

Van Helsing hadn’t yet reached the bottom of the stairs that led to the lab when he glanced around the room and shouted, “Carl!” A dozen faces turned toward him, but Carl’s wasn’t one of them.

On Van Helsing’s third and loudest shout, Carl raced between the blacksmith and an errand boy to meet him. “Yes, yes, Van Helsing, my god, must you bellow my name like that? I was in the back about to grind a new lens and nearly dropped it. What’s so--”

“This.” Van Helsing held up his crossbow and headed toward the back room where Carl had set up much of his custom-made equipment. “The aim is off and the kickback is worse with every shot. You’ll have to stop what you’re doing and take care of this or find me a new weapon.”

Carl scoffed and rushed to keep up. “Yes, of course, Van Helsing, your problems must take precedence over everyone else’s, mustn’t they?”

When they reached the back room and closed the door, Carl slid the three bolts he’d installed into place. He worked in here often, always locking the door so it wouldn’t seem suspicious that he did so when Van Helsing was with him.

Carl spun, hands on his hips. “I know I’ve said we need to put on a good show, but I wish you’d find a new ruse to get us back here once in a while.” He grabbed his robe where his hands rested and pulled it up and over his head. He followed Van Helsing to the corner, leaving shelves filled with glass bottles and locked boxes of who-knew-what between them and the door.

Van Helsing shrugged out of his heavy leather coat and lay it on a table. “It’s effective.” He unlaced the thin shirt Carl wore, while Carl did the same with his own trousers.

“Effective in making it seem that my inventions don’t stand up to use, and we both know they do. Just once you could come screaming down the stairs announcing that you’d broken something wonderful I made for you, begging me to fix it.” Carl dropped his trousers and stepped out of the puddle of fabric on the floor. “I also wouldn’t be opposed to you appearing absolutely devastated that you’d been so careless with--”

Van Helsing yanked him forward by his shirt and kissed him. It had been over two months since he’d been home, and his patience was at an end. Carl molded against him, and the tension he’d felt since he left began to fade. Van Helsing dragged his lips against Carl’s and licked into his mouth, reacquainting himself with the biggest reason he kept coming back.

Carl nipped at his lower lip, his hands moving over Van Helsing’s back, his ass, sliding around to slip inside his shirt and vest to touch his skin. “No wounds this time, I take it.” He pressed his mouth against Van Helsing’s jaw, then his neck. “Nothing that needs a dressing?”

He pulled Carl’s shirt over his head, leaving him naked. Then he grasped Carl’s hand and pressed it against the only part of him Carl needed to worry about this time. “This requires your immediate attention.”

“I don’t know, Van Helsing, if I can’t manage to align the aim on a simple fuel-powered, rapid-fire, cartridge-reloading crossbow, whatever do you think I can do about this?” He smirked and batted his eyes, but he opened Van Helsing’s trousers and slipped his hand inside. Carl squeezed and stroked him as expertly as he carved and engraved the scrollwork and symbols on his inventions.

Van Helsing didn’t touch him in kind, not yet. Carl enjoyed standing there naked, hard, vulnerable in front of a fully clothed Van Helsing while still maintaining control of their encounter. He liked touching Van Helsing, teasing him, moving him this way and that and fussing over him while Van Helsing let him. 

Carl could be annoyingly bossy on a good day, but after Van Helsing had been gone for a while, he seemed to be worse, probably because he missed it. The days when Van Helsing arrived back at the Vatican after a successful hunt to find Carl as eager for him as he was for Carl, those were the best days of all. And he never minded Carl bossing him, whether about how to kill an incubus or how to touch him the way he liked.

He listened to the complaints and the instructions, and waited, focusing on their time alone together, that moment when Carl would turn to warm wax in his hands and let pleasure take him over. Van Helsing would gladly put up with any amount of smirking and fussing and scolding for that.

“ . . . also no need to shout so. If you came in and found me and then did your complaining at a reasonable volume no one would think anything of us coming back here. Van Helsing, are you even listening to me?” Carl never paused in his stroking, and stood close enough that Van Helsing’s cockhead rubbed against Carl’s stomach.

“Trying to,” he admitted. He watched Carl’s lips and tongue move, but hadn’t heard much of what he’d said. He rocked forward into Carl’s grip.

“So impatient.” Carl grabbed a small jar off the nearest shelf and scooped the viscous substance out with two fingers. He spread it down the length of Van Helsing’s cock.

Van Helsing hissed at the cold. Despite it, he always hardened more in anticipation of what was to come.

“Oh, you _poor thing_ ,” Carl said in his _don’t be such a baby_ tone. “We’ll warm it--”

Van Helsing clamped his mouth over Carl’s, surprised by his own unwillingness to go slower this time. He’d missed Carl, and the fact that Carl was supposed to have gone with him but couldn’t because of a last-minute change by Jinette had made his absence notably worse.

When they were in the field, they didn’t have to hide in a back room. They didn’t have to know, deep down, that a naked Carl and fully clothed Van Helsing wasn’t just something Carl found exciting, but a hedge against them somehow being caught. It would be easy for them to pretend that Carl was manipulated, perhaps forced by a wicked Van Helsing, leaving Carl blameless.  

Most members of the Order would believe it without a second thought, since most of them questioned Jinette’s interpretation of Van Helsing’s arrival and his continued presence at the Vatican. They thought him some sort of barbarian, and he did little to convince them they were wrong. Sometimes, when he was covered in some creature’s blood and entrails, he thought perhaps they weren’t.

He deepened the kiss. His hands left Carl’s hips and slid down to squeeze Carl’s ass and pull him close.

In the field, he and Carl lay together without those concerns, because they stayed in places it was unlikely a stranger would discover them, and if one did, it would be an unfortunate encounter they could move on from easily. Not something that would scandalize the people Carl had worked and lived with most of his life and turn them against him if they thought he’d participated willingly.

At least Carl took every precaution--triple-bolted door, no windows, and a great deal of equipment most of the other people in the lab didn’t even understand so there was nothing suspicious about them being in the room. After Carl’s Vesuvius magma device had proven so effective and deadly, at least for vampires, and more than a few Order members suffered various small injuries thanks to one of Carl’s unpredictable inventions, no one questioned the wisdom of Carl’s work being locked in a room with stone-walls and a reinforced door.

Van Helsing pushed those thoughts and his recent mission out of his mind. He spun Carl in his arms and planted his mouth against the side of his neck beneath his ear.

“Get it.” Carl shook his fingers at the small wooden palette on the floor next to the shelf.

Carl had secured two short planks of wood together with what he was sure would be a revolutionary adhesive. Van Helsing stretched his foot over and dragged the block toward them. Sometimes Carl bent over a table, but sometimes he liked to stand. When Carl stepped up, it raised him to the perfect height to keep Van Helsing from having to crouch. Or to forget himself and continually drive Carl onto his toes, which had earned him more than a couple of scoldings.

He put himself into position, waiting for any sign that Carl wasn’t ready. When Carl pushed against him with an impatient huff, Van Helsing rocked forward until their bodies met and he was buried inside him.

He cupped Carl’s cock in his hand. “Perhaps next time I’ll come down the stairs sobbing and drop to my knees to beg your forgiveness for putting a scratch on one of your hand-blades.”

Carl’s laugh was cut short by a well-timed thrust. He breathed noisily through his mouth, and when he spoke, his voice was tight, a sign he was talking to hang on to control a little longer. “I would not object to you on your knees . . . for any reason.”

“Likewise.” Van Helsing growled in Carl’s ear and tried to pace himself, his rhythm steady but already fast.

“Did you bring anything back for me this time? Scales . . . ectoplasm . . . yeti _fur?_ ” His voice broke on the last word.

Van Helsing thrust deep and held there, gasping at the heat of him. “I’m giving you what I brought back for you.”

Carl shuddered and arched his back, pushing into each thrust while leaning back against Van Helsing as much as he could.

Van Helsing wrapped his fingers tightly around Carl's cock and stroked, his other hand sliding up Carl’s chest.

Someone knocked on the door. Van Helsing froze.

“Van Helsing,” Carl whispered, “I swear by all that is holy if you stop I will stab you in your sleep.”

A voice came from outside, muffled. Javier asking for Carl’s help to analyze some chemical reaction. Carl shouted, “I can’t stop what I’m doing right now, but I’ll help you as soon as I’m finished!”

Javier thanked him. It was likely he’d hover around the door until Carl emerged, but it didn’t matter.

He drove into Carl just as he had before the knock, stroked him, and let the hand gliding up his chest slip up Carl’s neck and jaw to press over Carl’s mouth, forcing him to arch even more.

In the field, he loved hearing the sounds Carl made. But despite all their precautions against discovery here, Carl was often so overcome, he couldn’t be trusted to be discreet.

Carl was a shouter.

Carl tensed, his muscles tightening, his hands pulling at Van Helsing’s arms as he drew near his peak. Van Helsing snapped his hips and buried himself again and again, finally lifting Carl to his toes despite the raised platform. A muffled word, _Gabriel_ , warmed his palm.

Carl’s cock pulsed in his hand as he came, his body tensing around Van Helsing and pushing him over the edge. Van Helsing stilled, his muscles tensed, and then pleasure spilled out of him. Carl shouted against his palm, his body twitching in Van Helsing’s arms.

Van Helsing pressed his open mouth against Carl’s nape, tasting salt on Carl’s skin, breathing against it while his heartbeat slowed. When he moved his hand from Carl’s mouth, Carl sucked in a breath.

“Hell . . . hell be damned,” Carl said, panting. 

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” His mouth moved to Carl’s shoulder. He wiped his hand across Carl’s stomach.

“It is, yes. Surely that’s preferable to _thank you, that was most refreshing_.”

“My goal is that one of these times, you’ll actually be speechless afterward.” He gently slid from Carl’s body.

Carl turned with a smirk, but his eyes conveyed other things. “You’ve come close, Van Helsing. Very close.” Carl kissed him, then scooted the little platform against the wall and set about cleaning himself and dressing.

Van Helsing took the top square of cloth on a stack of them Carl kept handy, and went to dip it into a bowl of water on a worktable near his coat. But there were two bowls of what looked like water. He sniffed them, but knew better than to touch anything of Carl’s he wasn’t sure of. He’d regretted doing that a time or two.

“Carl?”

Carl was pulling his robe over his head. “Oh, the one on the left.”

“What’s the one on the right?” He cleaned himself and slipped his coat on.

Instead of explaining, Carl tossed a short wooden dowel into the bowl on the right. The “water” spun in the bowl, lifting the dowel onto a spout like a tornado. The dowel burst into flame and disappeared, then the spout sank into the bowel and the water stilled.

“Labels, Carl. Learn to _label_ these things.”

“ _I_ know what they are.” Carl patted his robe down and ran fingers through his hair, which only served to make the sides stick out more. “There. How do I look?”

Van Helsing grabbed his robe and pulled him into a bruising kiss that Carl accepted eagerly. He breathed against Carl’s lips. “Well-fucked. Perhaps we should stay in here until that goes away.”

Carl chuckled and kissed Van Helsing’s neck, arms tightening around him, leather creaking under his grip. “The problem with that proposition is that if we stayed in here, it’s highly likely to only get worse.”

When Carl stepped back, he slipped on the helmet to which he’d fastened jointed arms and lenses of various strengths that made him look some kind of part-machine, part-man hybrid.

“And furthermore, Van Helsing,” he said loudly as he unbolted the door, already putting on a good show for anyone paying attention. “I’ll have you know that I calibrated the firing mechanism myself and can assure you that any changes in its precision are a result of your careless . . .”

Carl marched out, scolding him over his shoulder, while Van Helsing smirked with annoyance and followed, the crossbow that’s aim was still perfect resting against his shoulder.

Carl gave Van Helsing a sidelong glance as he headed for the stairs, the closest to a goodbye kiss they could ever share in the presence of others. Tomorrow, if Jinette hadn’t already sent him on his way, he’d find another reason to get Carl alone. He’d hardly beg for Carl to repair some damage he’d done to a weapon as Carl suggested, but it could be something different for a change.

On Carl’s birthday, perhaps he’d surprise him by coming to the lab, claiming he’d broken the crossbow or the blades, or jammed one of his silver stakes. And instead of demanding Carl fix it _now_ , he could ask him to repair it, nicely, as soon as he had a free moment. He could say please and everything.

Van Helsing chuckled and headed for Jinette's office. No, he couldn't. He could claim to have broken something in front of others, but asking nicely and saying please would probably have to be done in private, because no one in the lab would believe it. To make up for that part not happening in front of witnesses, the way Carl wanted, Van Helsing supposed he could find it in himself to drop to his knees and beg.


End file.
